4 Blazes In Orlando Renew Search For Serial Arsonist

August 4, 1987|By Bob Levenson of The Sentinel Staff

Orlando police will assign extra patrol officers and surveillance teams to the downtown area in an attempt to catch a serial arsonist now believed responsible for up to 46 fires in the past two years, fire and police officials said Monday.

The decision to pump extra manpower into the area, made at a meeting late Monday afternoon between fire department arson investigators and police patrol captains, came in the wake of four fires Sunday night that appear to be the work of the arsonist.

The Sunday night fires ''were set pretty much the way all the others have been,'' said District Fire Chief Tony Coshignano, who is heading the investigation. ''Whether they're related or not we can't say for certain, but I'd say there's a good chance they are.''

All four downtown fires Sunday were set in roughly the same manner and location as most of the previous fires and at similar times, Coshignano said. The previous fires were set either in downtown or in the College Park area north of downtown.

No one was injured in Sunday's fires and total damage to buildings was no more than $15,000. Nonetheless, the first apparent appearance of the arsonist since three houses in northwest College Park were torched in February sparked the most intense police and fire department efforts yet to catch the person responsible.

Coshignano, police arson investigator Laurie Fraser and Police Capt. Duane McGray said the following steps will be taken:

-- All available police patrol cars will respond to fire calls at night downtown and in an area just north of there to look for suspicious people. Police tried a similar plan in the fall of 1985 when the fires first broke out, but no arrests were made.

-- Police officers not busy on other calls will be asked to make extra patrols through the downtown area at night.

-- Some plainclothes officers will do surveillance work in the area.

The fires began in August 1985. Until February, when the three homes in northwest College Park were set on fire, the blazes had been confined to downtown and an area along north Orange Avenue bordering on east College Park. After the three February blazes, firefighters had believed the arsonist was responsible for about 30 fires. Because those three fires were so far outside the area where the other ones were set, investigators reviewed additional fires and concluded that about 12 others set in 1985 and 1986 in College Park could be the work of the same person, Fraser said.

Sunday's fires bring the total to 46 blazes that have caused close to $3 million in damage. Fraser and Coshignano say there are several characteristics, including location, tying the fires together. The arsonist sets the fires using materials at the scene, rather than bringing anything with him.

The first fire Sunday at the Goodyear Auto Service Center, 77 W. Robinson St., was set in tires outside the garage. The second, in a vacant concrete block building at 58 W. Amelia St., which formerly housed The Foam Firm, might have been set using kerosene stored near the building, Coshignano said.

The third blaze, at Singleton-Hutchinson-Wingo Inc., an insurance firm at 529 N. Magnolia Ave., was lighted using trash underneath the building. The final blaze occurred in a trash container on Park Lake Street between Magnolia and Orange avenues, at the southwest corner of the Olympia Place highrise office building under construction.

The first three fires were set between 8:35 p.m. and 10 p.m., fire department records show. On eight other occasions, the arsonist has set more than one fire on the same day.

The trash-bin fire was discovered about 1 a.m. by an Orlando police officer on routine patrol. Because of the time lapse from the first three, investigators are not sure it is related to the others.

Almost all of the fires have been set at night. The fires Sunday were set in places hard to reach or hidden from public view, much the same as in the other cases.

Other factors have puzzled investigators. The buildings involved have ranged from abandoned structures to businesses closed for the night to occupied houses.

That, along with the fact that the area is several square miles, has previously dissuaded police from trying many stakeouts or extra patrol assignments. Investigators have received only vague descriptions of a suspect. A man described as white, 6 feet tall, with brown hair and a slim or medium athletic build was seen leaving the scene of several 1985 fires.

Arson experts both here and nationally say serial fire-setters tend to be young white men with no friends and low-paying jobs they don't like. They likely were physically abused as children. They set fires for several reasons, but most likely are seeking recognition, power or sexual gratification.

At least five men -- two white and three black -- were reported walking or running from the area of the Goodyear fire Sunday, McGray said. Two witnesses said they saw a black man leaving the area of the insurance company fire, and provided a description of a car, but that has not produced any suspects, Fraser said.

Investigators have been operating under the theory that one man is responsible, although they said Monday there could be more than one arsonist.